Color of 1920's Anthony, Fla. SAL Depot?

We at the Ocala Model Railroaders' have a photo of the Anthony, Florida depot on the SAL main line made around 1920. Of course the photo is in black and white, and we can not tell the color of the depot. It has two passing sidings with a wood water tank. It looks like the roof is metal shingles, but not sure. Any help would be appreciated as we are building an HO model for the clubs HO Modules. Allen L. Wiener, Ocala, FL, OMRR

Answers

"SHADES OF THE SEABOARD"! The year is 2000! CSX has taken over all
the ex-C&O,B&O,L&N,SAL,ACL,and whatever else.They have painted all,or
most of thier buildings a yukky grey and blue.NO,NO,NO.Yesterday
evening after I had replied to this thread,I made a little trip out
to the old ACL shops at Tampa.I had not been out there for several
months.Was I SURPRISED! In the SCL days the RR used to wash
locomotives here and there was some kind of support building next to
the ramp.That building is now painted SEABOARD,buff, with dark brown
trim!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHAT IS GOING ON??????????

I seem to remember the Delray Beach and West Palm Beach Depots as
being sort of a pinkish orange. I don't think is was a true pink.
The restored WPB Amtrak depot is painted a color that, to my fading
memory, is a good match. This was a an excellent restoration job and
it may be possible to find out who did it and contact them for the
paint information. I seem to remember seeing a plaque in the court
yard giving information on the people responsible for the
restoration. Maybe one of our S. Fla members could stop by for a
look.

Good question. My knowlege of manufactoring paint is limited, but I
think the pigments used to give paints their colors are typically
metal oxides. Tan (buff) would be a mixture of white titanium(?)
oxide, reddish-brown iron oxide, and yellow iron oxide pigments. It
would seem safe to assume that percentages of the various pigments
changed between batches and/or suppliers. Depending on which batch
was used, it seems logical that the base color of SAL structures
could range from yellowish, tan, to beige. Fading and chalking of a
paint containing more of a reddish colored pigment could give a
building a pink look. At least thats one way to explain the apparent
variations in coloration observed so far.

More questions: Does anyone know what color the SAL's stucco stations
were originally painted? pink? buff/brown?

I'm curious if the SAL's financial condition forced it to abandon the
gray/green paint scheme used on wood structures in order to reduce
the cost of maintaining two separate paint stockpiles-gray/green for
wood depots and buff/brown for stucco depots. I guess the buff/brown
looked better on wood depots than gray/green would have looked on
stucco stations.

Finally, we're still waiting on the results from the analysis of SAL
paint chips - both the gray/green and buff(tan)/brown paint schemes.
Will share the results as soon as it comes in.

Depots were not the only buildings painted in this scheme,as follows,
Buff(tan if you prefer)basic color with dark brown trim.All
structures were painted like this.I don't know when it was phased out.
I remember by the early 60's they were starting to paint them white
with dark green trim.I have either seen the buff in slides or prints
or books somewhere.My big question,this paint faded very
badly,especially in Florida and looked like pink! Or as some say they
were pink? I'm just reading a book,where the author talks about a pink
Seaboard station.Does anyone know? We can find no official paint
information from the RR.Last year the Sebring,FL station was rebuilt
and I was told they got the original paint scheme from someone in
Amtrak.

SAL structure painting practices are somewhat of a mystery due to the
fact that so little hard data has surfaced. The earliest reference to
SAL painting practices that I am aware of is a Julian Cavalier
drawing of an SAL Std. No.4 depot in a late 80's issue of RMC. The
brief text accompanying the N-scale drawing states that Mr. Cavalier
based his drawing on a 1938/39 SAL blueprint and that a gray/green
paint scheme was specified. Unfortunately there is no information
available to tell us if this was the first paint scheme used by the
SAL.

The next paint scheme used by the SAL consisted of tan/brown. The
year of the switch from gray/green to tan/brown has not surfaced yet.
Previously, I stated that the body color was more of a depot buff
(pale yellow) than a tan. However, having had the opportunity review
more color photos and revisit earlier ones, it appears the body color
was definitely a tan color. (Sorry for doubting you Warren). However,
in late afternoon light it does take on a yellowish hue.

There is still an outside chance to determine the SAL paint scheme
used during the teens and twenties. In Bohi & Grant's book "The
Country Railroad Station in America" there are two photos of the
early SAL wood framed passenger depots in Ocala and Orlando (good
looking buildings). The structures appear to be painted in a medium
to light body color with dark trim. The Ocala photo appears to be a
post card view. Knowing that most B&W post cards were "colorized", if
you can locate one of these post cards, it might tell you the color
scheme in use at that time of the photo. Of course that depends on
how faithful the post card printers were to the prototype when
coloring a photo-a post card collector may be able to answer that
question for you. If you do manage to locate the above post card
please post your findings as every bit of info helps pin down dates
and colors.

Sorry to be so vague with this answer, but there simply is so little
hard data available. Hope this helps.